The present invention relates generally to the identification of features on three-dimensional objects and, more particularly, on three-dimensional ear impression models.
The manufacturing of medical devices designed to conform to anatomical shapes, such as hearing aids, has traditionally been a manually intensive process due to the complexity of the shape of the devices. FIG. 1A shows a diagram of a human ear that is, for example, the ear of a patient requiring a hearing aid. Specifically, ear 100 has various identifiable parts, or features, such as, for example, aperture 102, crus 103, canal 104, concha 105 and cymba 106. As one skilled in the art will recognize, in order to produce a hearing aid for the patient, an ear impression is typically taken. Various processes for taking such ear impressions have been developed, but most such processes typically involve inserting a pliable material into an ear and allowing that material to harden so that, when it is removed, the contours of the different parts of the ear, such as parts 102-106 of FIG. 1A, are accurately reflected on the impression. Such an ear impression reflecting the parts of ear 100 of FIG. 1A is shown in FIG. 1B. More particularly, ear impression 101 has aperture portion 102A corresponding to aperture 102 of FIG. 1A; crus portion 103A corresponding to crus 103 of FIG. 1A; canal portion 104A corresponding to canal 104 in FIG. 1A; concha portion 105A corresponding to concha 105 of FIG. 1A; cymba portion 106A corresponding to cymba 106; and lower body portion 107A.
Different methods have been used to create ear molds, or shells, from ear impressions. One skilled in the art will recognize that the terms ear mold and ear shell are used interchangeably and refer to the housing that is designed to be inserted into an ear and which contains the electronics of a hearing aid. Traditional methods of manufacturing such hearing aid shells typically require significant manual processing to fit the hearing aid to a patient's ear by, for example, manually identifying the various features of each ear impression. Then, an ear mold could be created by sanding or otherwise removing material from the shell in order to permit it to conform better to the patient's ear. More recently, however, attempts have been made to create more automated manufacturing methods for hearing aid shells. In some such attempts, ear impressions are digitized and then entered into a computer for processing and editing. The result is a digitized model of the ear impressions that can then be digitally manipulated. One way of obtaining such a digitized model uses a three-dimensional laser scanner, which is well known in the art, to scan the surface of the impression both horizontally and vertically. Another way of obtaining digitized models uses structured light scanning, which is also well known in the art. Whatever the method used to scan an ear impression, the result is a digitized model of the ear impression having a plurality of points, referred to herein as a point cloud representation, forming a graphical image of the impression in three-dimensional space. FIG. 2 shows an illustrative point cloud graphical representation 201 of the hearing aid impression 101 of FIG. 1B. As one skilled in the art will recognize, the number of points in this graphical point cloud representation is directly proportional to the resolution of the laser scanning process used to scan the impression. For example, such scanning may produce a point cloud representation of a typical ear impression that has 30,000 points.
Once such a digitized model of an ear shell has been thus created, then various computer-based software tools have been used to manually edit the graphical shape of each ear impression individually to, for example, create a model of a desired type of hearing aid for that ear. As one skilled in the art will recognize, such types of hearing aids may include in-the-ear (ITE) hearing aids, in-the-canal (ITC) hearing aids, completely-in-the-canal (CIC) hearing aids and other types of hearing aids. Each type of hearing aid requires different editing of the graphical model in order to create an image of a desired hearing aid shell size and shape according to various requirements. These requirements may originate from a physician, from the size of the electronic hearing aid components to be inserted into the shell or, alternatively, may originate from a patient's desire for specific aesthetic and ergonomic properties.
Once the desired three-dimensional hearing aid shell design is obtained, various computer-controlled manufacturing methods, such as well known lithographic or laser-based manufacturing methods, are then used to manufacture a physical hearing aid shell conforming to the edited design out of a desired shell material such as, for example, a biocompatible polymer material.